Breathe with me

I had a plan.  Last summer, I had a plan.  I was doing well financially and through a combination of things, I've been able to save/pay off debt roughly a quarter of my pre-tax salary while I've been out here.  I had about five grand left in student loan debt and my monthly payment was around $80.  Instead, I paid off all of it in six months and the plan was then to save up so I could make a 10-15% down payment on a house this summer.  I'd teach an extra class in the spring and a class or two in the summer and I'd do just as well, if not better, and I'd still have plenty of money for travel.  The first part of the plan went well.  I made it through December and became debt free.  Then everything kind of went to crap.  I had my trip to the ER which is going to run me a little over $2500 because hooray for a high deductible plan.  I really wish I had a sarcasm font.  This year, I should probably have my doctor refer me to a GI specialist so I can figure out what's causing my esophagitis.  Earlier this week, I got an EOB for my dentist visit and I'm not sure if this is correct, but its telling me I owe another $300+.  My car's engine decided to get loud about a month ago.  Its not running rough, but it certainly sounds like something's not right so I need to bring that in and see if something is wrong and I can't imagine that doesn't run me at least a couple of hundred bucks.  I know, this all could be worse, and I hate complaining, but this isn't how it was supposed to go.  I've prayed for financial well-being and maybe this is God's way of telling me to stop worrying about this and to just let him handle it instead of trying to deal with it all myself.  This may just be another of God's reminders that His plan is always better than mine.  I might not meant to be here forever.  Perhaps I am and I find a great deal on a house and everything works out as I hoped; perhaps nothing works out with Lindsey and the community out here doesn't develop and I leave next summer and move to California; perhaps everything works out with Lindsey and her call becomes incredibly clear and we move out to West Africa.  Who knows?  I need to keep myself open to God's plan instead of focusing on mine.  Its just that everything has gotten a little overwhelming since while I am very good with money, I do worry about it too often.  It doesn't help that all of this gets to me and I can see some of my traveling going by the wayside.  The trip out to the Northeast might be off already (possibly replaced) and my spring break hiking trip might be next, depending on my car's diagnosis.  The Northeast camping trip being canceled though does mean I will be at the cabin and Mom will still love me so that might not be a bad thing.  I apologize for this sounding whiny, but its just something that's been weighing on me for the past few weeks and blogging about it hopefully helps me let go and stop worrying.  All I can do is try to stop worrying, give it all up to God, take a few deep breaths and just relax and know that I'll be taken care of no matter what happens.  This feeling that I don't have any of my shit together whatsoever will pass soon enough.

This is quick but not quite painless

This morning, our chapel speaker spoke in honor of MLK Day and his main message was directed toward our students, letting them know that now is the time to act and if they wait longer, it'll be too late.  As we left, my colleague, who's a year younger than me, turned and asked me if we were still youth.  "Based on how much my body creaks and groans, I don't think so", I replied.  I'm not going to lie, I frequently just hurt, but that's all my own doing.  Setting my goals for pushups, pullups and miles may not have been terribly smart.  I'm not worried about the miles because marathon training should take care of a large chunk of that.  I'm similarly confident in the pushups because I feel like I could knock out 100 a day and do all of that in the last six months if necessary.  I'm a little more worried about the pullups since I'm falling behind already and an extra 20-25 pullups a day is a bigger deal than 60 extra pushups.  It doesn't help that I'm getting a ton of exercise in this semester.  Marathon training has me running four times a week, and with the exception of next Saturday, all of those runs will be at least five miles for the next couple of months.  I'm lifting on the days I don't run and then two hours of volleyball on Wednesday nights and I need to start doing yoga at least once a week and preferably twice.  I will either destroy my body doing this or I will finally, finally get cut if I can survive the work and be disciplined in eating.

I took yesterday off when realistically, I should have done some yoga since my legs are rather tight.  However, my next day off probably won't be until the first Saturday of spring break and even then, there's a good chance I spend eight or more hours of that day in a car driving to Virginia or Georgia or wherever I haven't been yet.  I'll get that week off from lifting and running long distance, but I'll still probably get in 20-30 miles of hiking because that's apparently what I do now, any time I get the opportunity.

Life is a test and I get bad marks

I've never been shy about admitting that I still appreciate it when I discover a student is crushing on me.  Some may find it creepy, but its still a respite for me from when I never felt attractive at all in my younger years and its a nice ego boost as well.  My first year out here was a struggle, most of it due to loneliness, but I got through it okay.  There were a few classes that were harder than others to deal with, but their were a handful of good students in those classes that helped me get through it, including one who I thought may have something for me.  (Disclaimer: I would never act on any of this.  Give me some credit.)  Today, I found out she's a lesbian.  Yeah, I may have misread that situation a little bit.

How did I find out?  One of my fellow volunteers at the food pantry directed me to an open letter on the internet that's a call for AU to start being more open towards the LGBTQ community and there's a long list of alumni who have signed it.  I scrolled through it and noticed my former student's name near the bottom and her classification of herself as a lesbian.  Note that this doesn't change how I feel about her a single iota.  She was one of my best students and impressed me with her work and if by some odd happenstance, she came back and asked for a letter of recommendation, I'd gladly give it to her.  There's another one of my favorite students that hasn't graduated yet that told me during our first meeting that she was a lesbian and I'll be extremely proud of her when she graduates because she's overcome so many other things as well.  All that said though, I didn't sign the letter.  I'm not fully ready to classify myself as an ally yet and for some of my potential readers, you may judge me for that all you wish.  Being homosexual is not a sin, but acting on it is and I don't want to get to the point we start accommodating sin.  Don't get me wrong though.  I don't want to harp on this somehow as a sin worse than any other.  There are certain sins I struggle with immensely and would hate to be ostracized because of them.  There are still the occasional times where I struggle with fairly intense loneliness and I can't imagine how much harder that would be for something I had no control over.  The church has been fairly hypocritical on this as well, with many who crucify homosexuality turning a blind eye to both promiscuity/extramarital sex/divorce.  Should I identify as an ally?  Probably, since I certainly won't identify as against the community, but for now, I'll withdraw any further comment.

The future is bullet proof

My biopsy came back positive.  Your invincibility takes a bit of a hit when the biopsy comes back positive.  Don't freak out anyone - it's not cancer, it's eosinophilic esophagitis.  Here's what this means as far as I know right now.  Most of this is gleaned from the Mayo Clinic's website and wikipedia, so that's the first disclaimer.  Eosinophils are white blood cells that are typically present in the stomach.  However, in situations like mine, due to various causes such as allergies or acid reflux, they may build up in the esophagus and cause the esophagus to constrict, in some cases forming rings, hence why eosinophilic esophagitis (EE) may also be known as feline esophagus or ringed esophagus.  EE is most common in younger males and so I guess I got half of that correct.  Until the last decade or so, EE was commonly misdiagnosed along with GERD (acid reflux disease), which I'm guessing I have as well and that I know was passed down genetically.

Here all of my next steps laid out.  First, I had to find a personal physician and I've done that but I can't get in for an actual appointment until near the end of the month.  Once that's happened, I will most likely have her refer me to a GI specialist who can determine what I'm actually allergic to, if anything.  My guess would be that its based on the acid reflux and not allergies, but that's just a shot in the dark.  Mom's most likely guess right now is green beans, which would make pre-college Lisa quite jealous, but I like beans and don't really want to give them up.  Besides all of that, I've had to find a pharmacy nearby that makes compound medications, which once again, I've already done, so that they can make me a Budesonide slurry.  Budesonide is a glucorticoid steroid most commonly used in the treatment of asthma and COPD.  I'll be taking it in slurry form so that it'll coat the esophagus and work there instead of just making its way immediately to the stomach.  I believe the plan is for me to take these intermittently over a period of ten weeks, but I'm not sure on that at all and I'll have to ask my nurse when I get hold of her again.

Finally, when you know you have to take a slurry, just use the examples you'd know, like a slushie or slurpee or whatever a convenience store wants to call it, as opposed to the Google definition, which is "a semiliquid mixture, typically of fine particles of manure, cement, or coal suspended in water." 
Gagalicious.

A little better all the time

You want a New Year's Resolution from me?  Okay, here goes.  By this time next year, I want to be in a better place than I am now.  Its vague, sure, but this past year was pretty good and this time I don't want to focus on just getting out and experiences, I'd like to focus on being in a better situation.  I fully expect that this may be a huge year for me.  There's a decent chance I buy a house.  There's a better chance I get engaged.  There's an even better chance I get to experience a whole lot of fun natural stuff in California (Okay, that's an experiential one. I'm not giving them all up.) But that's not what's becoming the focus this year.  Let's keep this fairly simple and have one physical goal, one spiritual goal and one experiential goal.  For my physical goal, I want to do 7500 pullups, 20000 pushups and run 750 miles.  On this first day so far, I've currently done 7 pullups.  That's it.  I'll have to work much harder on that.  For my spiritual goal, I've been holding on to a copy of J.I. Packer's Daily Readings for a couple of months now.  I will limit myself to doing one devotional per day and I want to get through at least 350 devotionals.  For the experiential goal, I want to have three MAJOR experiences.  This could be buying a house, getting engaged, climbing half-dome, climbing Katahdin whatever.  I want to have at least three.  If you have to ask if its a major thing, its not.  I'll try to keep everyone updated.